My partner bought me The Food Lab for my birthday, and I have never enjoyed a cookbook more. It feels like a textbook, which would turn some people off but I love haha. The other cookbook recommendations (and I’m sure someone else has said this) are the Joy of Cooking, and Salt Fat Acid Heat. Joy is a time-tested resource that can really help any new cook dive into the basics, and SFAH is a great dive into the building blocks of flavor.

Completely agree with the texture note. Beyond that, I think it’s really the spice blend that does the trick. My wife and I eat tofu tacos all the time, and if you use a nice blend of chili powders (my favorites are ancho or chipotle), cumin and Mexican oregano it comes out pretty fantastic.

Really amazing stuff! The biggest mental thing for me is stay proud of yourself, so many people never put in the effort so even if you make something that doesn’t come out quite right you’re still kicking ass. One of my super easy go-to meals is cherry tomato pasta. Cook some cherry tomatoes and minced garlic in a good glug of olive oil until some of the tomatoes begin to burst. Meanwhile, boil some pasta. Throw the pasta in the cherry tomato pan, finish with salt and pepper, basil and Parm if you feel fancy, and viola! In terms of learning about cooking, I cannot recommend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt on YouTube enough. I love his personality, and he really explains why he does what he does when he makes food. It fits my style of learning, and allows me to learn the fundamentals that I can translate to whatever I want to cook. He has a great blend of easy recipes and large projects too if you ever start feeling ambitious in the kitchen.

Thanks for the concern friend ❤️. Great idea! If you make the post I’ll voice strong support haha.

That looks fantastic - if I ever stop being so cheap I might have to pick one up lol.

Actually speaking of - great time to plug the safest way to clean grill grates. I use a wad of aluminum foil between tongs to scrape, that way there’s never any danger of metal bristles from those cheap grill brushes being left behind.

Been all about coffee rubs on beef recently!

Lookin at the rib!

Lol no that’s a hair from my beard 🙈 thankfully wifey didn’t get that piece

Personally I think cheese and starch emulsifies better over high heat, the bubble action in the pasta water actually helps create more agitation and a creamier emulsion. So personally I like to do it in the pan over heat. Also adding more butter won’t necessarily help, I think additional fat can be counterproductive sometimes. Just my take though!

Elite topping choices.

❤️

Not with that attitude!

Technically yes but it’s very simple. Butter, garlic, black pepper, and a whole bunch of hot sauce. I use Frank’s since that’s the classic flavor but any hot sauce works great!

Will have to give it a shot sometime!

I think sweet can be good if it’s balanced with spicy. Otherwise it gets cloying. Never tried breaded wings before, I always just focus on crisping the skin as much as possible. Will have to think on that one…

Yes!

Always a banger option as well! Really hard to go wrong with chicken wings :)

Normal sized buffalo, each one just has 10000 of these wings.

People commonly get them mixed up…